


the lighthouse

by heartsighed



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid Fusion, Childhood Friends, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, With A Twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-13 05:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14743040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsighed/pseuds/heartsighed
Summary: There’s an old brick lighthouse on the edge of the bluff, long since fallen into disuse, and they used to say that if you stood at the very top of the tower, you could see a gleaming city sitting just under the watery horizon. On stormy nights, the structure groans like the bones of a man at the tail-end of his life, but when the sun shines strong, the windows of the tower are as clear as a summer lake.Or, Wonsik follows Hongbin out of the sea.





	the lighthouse

**Author's Note:**

> uh i promise i'm still working on my long fic for those who read it ;; i just got distracted admiring all the mermay art
> 
> warnings: someone almost drowns but that's it

There’s an old brick lighthouse on the edge of the bluff, long since fallen into disuse, and they used to say that if you stood at the very top of the tower, you could see a gleaming city sitting just under the watery horizon. On stormy nights, the structure groans like the bones of a man at the tail-end of his life, but when the sun shines strong, the windows of the tower are as clear as a summer lake.

Wonsik follows the winding path up the sheer side of the cliff. Individual grains of sand and soil scrape at the tender skin between his new toes, and the sun burns his smooth neck pink as it beats down from the blue sky.

When Hongbin opens the door and sees him in his stiff clothes, crusted with salt, all the warm blood drains from his face.

“Go back,” is all he says before he closes the door in Wonsik’s face.

 

\--

 

Hongbin had always wanted to find new love on land. There is no lover in sight when he opens the door again for Wonsik’s pounding fist.

Wonsik watches with wide eyes as Hongbin wordlessly carries canisters of salt from the kitchen to the bathroom, dumping them into the filling bathtub. He spreads his hands against clothes draped carelessly over a seat, feeling the rough cloth rumple beneath his fingers.

“Get in,” Hongbin says when the water is just below the rim.

He looks away when Wonsik strips off his clothes. The bottom of the tub is still silty with undissolved salt that crunches as Wonsik steps in. The water is warmer than the ocean, and the processed salt on his tongue could never replace the taste of rich brine in his gills.

After a long moment, Wonsik stands, rubbing at the gooseflesh prickling his skin, and Hongbin’s breath hitches. His eyes shine with unshed tears.

“Oh Wonsik,” he says softly, “What have you done?”

 

\--

 

The Hongbin he finds in the lighthouse, Wonsik eventually realizes, is not quite the same Hongbin he knows anymore. He is not the Hongbin who chased him through the waves of kelp and trilled softly in his ear to lull him to sleep and groomed his tail when they sunned themselves on abandoned shores. His ears are round, his skin soft and dry. His shoulders are broader, his features are sharper, and he covers himself in layers and layers of clothes every day to walk into the village for ‘work.’

During the day, Wonsik sits on the couch and slouches in the tub and paces along the edge of the bluff, taking in the scent of the sea in such large gulps, it feels as if his gills will open again. He never ventures down to the beach, for fear of heartsickness.

“What did you come here for?” Hongbin asks.

“I wanted to find love, too,” Wonsik lies.

He does not need warm blood and round ears and unwieldy legs to know love. He has known his sea, his family, his shoal, and most of all, he has known Hongbin all his life. There is nothing on dry land that could teach him to love more acutely than the cold cradle of his home waters, the swish of his parents’ tails pushing around him when they swim together, and the fond brush of Hongbin’s thinly-webbed fingers against his cheek.

Hongbin blinks at him, his lips pinched thin.

“Did you find it?”

Wonsik is too scared to ask, _Did you?_

“I haven’t met anyone yet,” he says instead, laughing softly. “What do you think?”

The next day, Hongbin takes him into village.

 

\--

 

The world on land is strange, but with Hongbin’s help, it makes sense. It has been nearly a century since Wonsik last saw his friend, and Hongbin has lived on dry soil longer than he ever lived in the sea.

“Do you miss it?” Wonsik asks, once.

“Every day,” Hongbin replies.

Wonsik keeps quiet, even though he does not understand. He wonders what kind of undying love could last for one hundred years, and he cannot fathom what kind of being could resist falling in love with Hongbin for so long.

 

After days of sticking to Hongbin like a barnacle, Wonsik begins to meet the other townspeople. He wonders which one is the lucky recipient of Hongbin’s undying affections. The handsome librarian, Taekwoon, perhaps, or the youngest teacher at the local preschool, Hakyeon.

He asks the butcher’s son once, but Sanghyuk just laughs.

“Any interested suitors in town have long given up on wooing Mr. Lee,” he tells Wonsik. “He is known for being a reserved, private man. He is quite courteous and polite with everyone, but not a single one of us has even glimpsed the inside of that lighthouse since he moved in. Imagine our surprise when we heard that he was living with a man none of us had ever seen before!”

Sanghyuk is not the only townsperson to express curiosity towards Hongbin’s new houseguest. The grocer, Jaehwan, corners Wonsik the next time Hongbin takes him out to buy ingredients for dinner.

“So you live in the lighthouse,” Jaehwan says while Hongbin is preoccupied with sifting through ears of broccoli. “I wasn’t aware that Mr. Lee had taken on a companion.” The twinkle in his eye betrays exactly what type of companion he thinks Wonsik to be.

“I am merely an old friend,” Wonsik stammers. His face and ears feel uncomfortably warm. “Hongbin is only temporarily providing me with room and board.”

“Oh, is that so?” Jaehwan sighs, sounding almost wistful. “Too bad. There’s just something romantic about the lighthouse, you know?”

He looks surprised at Wonsik’s bewildered expression.

“There’s a legend that used to go around town, back when people believed those kinds of stories,” Jaehwan tells him. “They say that there was a lonely sea witch who lived on a castle at the top of the bluff, where the lighthouse is now. She used to climb to the top of the highest tower every day to look out at the sea. They say that if you stood at the top of the tower and looked into the horizon, you could find what you were searching for.”

“What was she searching for?” Wonsik asks.

“The witch?” Jaehwan smiles. “She found a lover on land, and they lived happily ever after in the castle. They say she never climbed the tower again after they met. You would assume she was looking for love or companionship or something, right?”

 

\--

 

He dreams of the witch’s words, sometimes, when the nights are stormy and Hongbin shifts restlessly on the other side of the bed. He only visited her cave twice—once to accompany Hongbin and again for just himself—but he has recited the words thousands of times since.

_You may return to the sea only when you no longer feel the burden of unrequited love._

When he wakes up in the morning, their legs are always tangled under the sheets, ankles hooked in a manner reminiscent of the way their fins draped against one another when they used to sun themselves on the rocks.

 

There are some who return without a companion, Wonsik knows. They love and hurt and heal and find renewed comfort in the cradle of the sea, their home.

But Hongbin would never stoop to settling for less when he has set his sights on a goal. He would rather die and crumble to dry dust under the earth than let his love dwindle and fade.

 _Forget them_ , Wonsik wants to tell Hongbin, _If they will not love you back, forget them and come home with me_.

He never says anything. It would be hypocritical for Wonsik of all people to ask such a thing.

 

“I am afraid,” Hongbin admits on one of his more vulnerable days. He clenches his fist around his chopsticks. “There are days when I feel that I will never see home again.”

Wonsik pries his fingers loose, one by one, and holds them tenderly with both hands.

“I do not doubt that you will find the love that you deserve,” he says quietly. “And until you do find it, I will wait with you here.”

 

On Wonsik’s more vulnerable days, he thinks about standing alone on the shore and watching Hongbin walk into the sea.

 

\--

 

Wonsik gets a job at the docks with Sanghyuk’s father’s friend. He just runs errands, delivering messages and doing odd jobs here and there, but he relishes the way the scent of the sea embeds itself into his clothes, soaking his hair and skin such that it does not come off even when he bathes at night.

Sometimes he visits the butcher’s shop when he is on break, taking his lunch with Sanghyuk in the back of the store as they prop their feet up on wooden crates and chat. He went to see Hongbin once, but Taekwoon chased him out with threats of disembowelment if he dared to step foot in the library again with dirt on his trousers.

“The ocean always scared me,” Sanghyuk confesses once over cold cut sandwiches. “I’d be terrified of working on the docks, honestly.”

The statement surprises Wonsik. It has never occurred to him in his life to be scared of the sea.

“Maybe I’ve just heard one story too many about fishermen dying during storms,” Sanghyuk shrugs when Wonsik asks him why. “They say drowning is the most painful way to die, after all, and the ocean is huge. It would swallow us right up.”

 

The conversation doesn’t come back to Wonsik again until that night at home, as they’re getting ready for bed.

“Are you afraid of dying at sea?” he asks, sticking his feet under the sheets. There are many things Wonsik hates about having legs, but he has learned to enjoy the warmth of a hot water bottle nestled at the foot of the bed.

Hongbin sits down on the other side of the bed, fluffing his pillow before lying down.

“I’ve honestly never even been to the beach or the docks since I got here,” he says, “I’m afraid I will miss it too much.”

Wonsik hums and nods. “It had not occurred to me that humans would be afraid of the ocean until Sanghyuk told me.”

“Sanghyuk, the butcher’s son?” Hongbin frowns.

“Yes, he is kind enough to keep me company when I eat my lunch.”

There is a pause, just a bit too long, before Hongbin speaks again.

“Ah, I see,” he finds Wonsik’s hands under the sheets. “I’m glad you’ve become comfortable with the townspeople.”

 

\--

 

Nearly three months after Wonsik’s arrival, Hongbin asks, “Are you in love yet?”

They are sitting on the edge of the cliff, feet bare against the rough rock. Wonsik has long since become accustomed to climbing the boulders around the lighthouse, and the bottoms of his feet are thick and callused, as if he has had them all his life.

“For a while now,” Wonsik says.

“Do you think they will ever love you back?”

Wonsik smiles, bittersweet, “No, I don’t think so.”

They are silent for a moment, until Wonsik realizes that Hongbin is crying steadily. He reaches over without hesitation, guiding Hongbin’s head into his shoulder.

“I just want to forget already,” Hongbin mumbles, the words muffled in his shirt. “I want to forget and go home.”

 

\--

 

Once, Wonsik climbs to the top of the tower. When he looks into the horizon, all he can see is the dark, roiling sea.

 

\--

 

“I think you should go home,” Hongbin tells him over breakfast. He spreads butter over toast and stares down at the knife when he is done. “You should hurry up and get over it before you fall too far.”

“Will you come with me, then?” Wonsik tries to catch his gaze, to no avail.

Hongbin shakes his head, “I would like some time alone again, I think.”

“Oh,” Wonsik swallows. Hongbin winces.

“I just don’t want you to become stranded here,” he says quickly. He lays a hand over Wonsik’s on the table, warm and soft and too smooth. “I’m sure the shoal misses you.”

“You’re right. I’ll wait for you at home, then?” Wonsik tries a weak smile, and Hongbin relaxes.

 

“How do you heal from unreciprocated love?” Wonsik asks the next time he eats lunch behind the butcher’s place.

Sanghyuk leans forward. “Someone rejected you?”

“Well, not quite,” Wonsik frowns. “But I know he does not feel the same.”

Sanghyuk gives him a significant look, “The first step would be to tell him, then, right?”

 

Because Wonsik is a coward, he writes a letter instead. He figures that if Hongbin reads the letter eventually (long after he is gone), it will serve the same purpose as telling him directly.

He takes a day off work and sits down in Hongbin’s kitchen with paper and pen and stares down at the blank sheet for a while before he begins to write.

 _My dearest friend,_ it starts, _I must confess that I have not been entirely honest with you all this time. There is a part of me that feared, even before you left, that if I ever drank that witch’s potion, I would never see the sea again…_

When he is done, his chest feels lighter than it has been in a long, long time.

 

He does not leave that day, or the next, or the next. In the mornings, he folds the letter into fourths and tucks it into his breast pocket. As time wears on, he imagines the paper soaking in the scent of brine and pulling the deep ache straight out of his chest.

When he is ready, he shuffles the worn papers into a pristine envelope on the kitchen table and leaves his shoes by the door.

 

\--

 

He stepped out of the sea alone, and he will go in alone again.

The beach is cold and windy with icy rain. Quickly, methodically, he takes off his jacket and sweater and shirt and shoes and socks and pants and boxers. The wind whips at his skin and pulls at his hair, blowing salt and sand and cold slaps of water into his legs as he wades out.

It’s not until he is chest-deep that he realizes he can still feel the sand between his toes, and then the water is sweeping him away, and it is too late.

 

The sea is terrifying when it does not recognize him, he thinks. It batters him and presses into his chest, and he hears, in Sanghyuk’s voice, _They say drowning is the most painful way to die._

The worst part is not the pain, but the cold, he thinks, before something wraps around his waist and _pulls_.

“—GE BACK,” is the first thing he hears when he breaks through the surface, coughing and spluttering and kicking his legs feebly.

“CHANGE BACK,” Hongbin yells in his ear, slapping at his cheek and sending more water into his mouth. He quickly stops when he realizes Wonsik is still choking and heaving, and finally, he understands and begins to pull them towards shore.

They land on the beach in an ungainly sprawl, as Wonsik is too weak to trust his legs, and Hongbin is struggling to drag himself and his flopping tail. In the end, they collapse a safe distance from the water, and Hongbin crawls the last feet between them to cradle Wonsik to his chest. He pats at his face and chest with cold, webbed hands, his tears mingling with the rain and the sea as they drip down his nose and cheeks and chin.

When his tail finally recedes, he helps Wonsik dress and together, they stagger up the bluff. Inside, Hongbin silently warms up a salty bath, guiding Wonsik into the tub when it’s filled to the brim and kneeling by the side.

“Join me,” Wonsik says hoarsely, brushing cold fingers through Hongbin’s hair.

Hongbin shakes his head.

“Show me again, please,” Wonsik says. “I’ve missed you so, Hongbin.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he stands to pull off his clothes and clambers into the tub. The change takes over almost immediately as he stands opposite Wonsik and lowers himself into the water.

Hongbin’s tail was always beautiful, and Wonsik can feel his throat tightening with tears at the familiar sight. The ceramic tub is already a squeeze for two full-grown humans, and his fins flip over the side, sloshing bathwater all over the tiled floor.

“Here,” Wonsik puts a hand up to stop him from flopping out of the tub entirely. He pulls his legs to his chest, hugging his knees. “Better?”

“You didn’t change.” Hongbin says, his luminescent eyes shining with tears. He puts a webbed hand to the warm skin of Wonsik’s knee.

“I know.”

“It’s my fault.”

Wonsik frowns. “Hongbin—”

“I’m sorry,” he says thickly, and there’s a familiar trill in his voice now.

Wonsik stops him with a shaking hand to his jaw, tracing the closed gills and patches of smooth scales along the side of his neck. His chest squeezes when Hongbin automatically leans into the touch, chasing it when he draws away.

“Can I ask—who is it?”

“Is it not obvious?,” Hongbin says, “It’s always been you.” Wonsik’s breath catches in his throat. “Since I can remember, it’s been you. I thought I was cursed to never forget.”

The flesh of his throat burnt with salt and water and exhaustion, but Wonsik barely notices as he takes in harsh breaths, barely able to believe his ears.

“You left to find love,” he says, and Hongbin shakes his head.

“I came to rid myself of unrequited love,” he corrects. “I thought that if I separated myself from you and found new love on land, I could finally forget everything.”

“It’s been nearly one hundred years,” Wonsik chokes out, and Hongbin’s lips pull into a fragile smile.

“We’ve been quite foolish all this time, don’t you think?”

“I did not think I would ever be able to see our home again,” Wonsik admits, a new wave of tears already stinging at his eyes.

“And yet you walked into the ocean like an idiot.” Hongbin’s eyes soften.

Wonsik closes his eyes. Something soothing settles in his bones, pulling him towards the sea. Already, he can taste the brine in his gills and feel the water through his fins.

He opens his eyes and says, “Come home with me?”

Hongbin smiles.

“Yes,” he replies, “Yes, of course.”

 

\--

 

There’s an old brick lighthouse on the edge of the bluff, long since fallen into disuse, and they used to say that if you stood at the very top of the tower, you could find what you were looking for just under the watery horizon. On stormy nights, the structure groans like the bones of a man at the tail-end of his life, but when the sun shines strong, the windows of the tower are as clear as a summer lake.

They follow the winding path down the sheer side of the cliff. The gritty sand and warm rock scrape at the undersides of their bare feet, and the sun burns their bare skin pink as it beats down from the blue sky.

They pause just at the edge of the water and Wonsik steps closer, linking their hands between them.

Together, they step into the surf.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](heartsighcd.tumblr.com)


End file.
